VIRGINIA 101 



the inhabitants of .the country adjacent and give them 

 their cheerless, pale faces. Not long ago, according 

 to what the people said, a nervous fever had caused a 

 terrible devastation among the blacks and the other 

 inhabitants as well. The disease began with an ex- 

 traordinary weakness, accompanied by pains in the 

 head and back, and was often fatal within the first 

 12-24 hours. Those people who live on dry sandy 

 soils, at a distance from streams and swamps, are com- 

 monly more healthy, but even they are subject to au- 

 tumn sicknesses which are general almost throughout 

 the coast country. For the rest, the Virginians live 

 pretty regularly, take much exercise by riding, are 

 temperate in eating, and even in drink are not univer- 

 sally excessive. Their domestic drinks are a sour, 

 half-flat, cloudy cyder, persimon beer, apple and peach 

 whiskey ; in lower Virginia as yet few or no attempts 

 have been made to brew beer in the regular way. 



